Goldenhills Plantation - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki
This page is an overview of Goldenhills Plantation, the large farm available via the Anniversary Edition, as it appears in Tuxborn. We're doing a full page writeup on this home since Tuxborn's load order heavily impacts it, changing its behavior from how it appears in its original Creation. But we're also offering some tips and advice on how to handle running it.
"If I visit Goldenhills Plantation in my game, the family is still alive! What's up with this?"
The changes put in by CC Farming are responsible for this. You will need to follow the requirements in the next section in order to kick off the plot that will result in the family's deaths. Until then, you can visit the farm as you like!
You can buy crops from Urval (the husband), and alchemy ingredients from Jonquil (the wife). Additionally, Jonquil can serve as an Alchemy trainer. So factor this into your plans for early stages of your playthrough, especially if you're interested in leveling your Alchemy.
"So if the family is still alive at the start of the game, how can I get Goldenhills Plantation?"
The requirements for getting Goldenhills are different in Tuxborn than they are in vanilla.
You need to be at least level 15. And additionally, you need to talk to the innkeeper in either Rorikstead or Whiterun. Ask them if if there any problems around town that need handling. This will then give you the pointer to proceed to the farm, and you'll find the family dead as per the vanilla start of the plot.
"Does CC Farming make any other alterations to the plot of The Unquiet Dead?"
Yes. The end of the plot is tweaked a bit, and you will have different requirements to track down the remains of the son.
You still need to visit the well, but you will not find the son's remains or his toy sword there. Instead, you'll find an additional journal that will point you to Rannveig's Fast. The good part of this is, it gives you an actual in character excuse to go there. This can be helpful especially if you're hunting for the Stones of Barenziah, since Rannveig's Fast is one of the locations where the Stones can appear.
Lastly, to take control of the farm, you have to buy the land from Proventus in Dragonsreach, once the ghosts of the family are laid to rest.
"What other changes does CC Farming make to the plantation?"
There are a few:
- Upgrades to the available fields where you can plant crops
- Increasing the number of farmhands you can hire
- Allowing you to hire guards
- Appropriate changes to on-site housing to allow for the higher number of NPCs on the property
- If you hire beggars to work for you on the farm, you can give them extra gold to let them buy themselves proper clothes
Re: item 5 on this list, note that hired beggars will most likely still have their typical lines, even after you hire them. For example, if you hire Silda the Unseen to get her out of Windhelm, she'll still have lines where she begs for coin.
‼️ Additional advisory re: Silda: ‼️ If you do recruit her, be mindful that she's necessary to run the Blood on the Ice quest in Windhelm! So if you want to consider recruiting her as a farmhand, you might want to run Blood on the Ice first. Otherwise, it makes no narrative sense for you to have to go to your farm to question her about what she witnessed as part of that plot.
"How useful is Goldenhills Plantation as a player home?"
Pretty useful! Even if you don't use it as your primary home base, it's very useful to acquire just as an income generator. Once you build it out, it includes all crafting stations, a stone quarry, and a clay deposit. So it could be an excellent secondary home base, and it's a good place to go if you need materials to build out the Legacy of the Dragonborn guildhall and outposts. It's even a short run or ride away from the location of one of the outposts!
The UESP page for Goldenhills warns that children and pets may not recognize it as a valid home. So if you want to consider settling your family there, take a good save first, so you can revert back to it if you discover issues with this.
"What kind of crops can I plant at Goldenhills?"
This is entirely up to you. If you are interested in Alchemy, you may consider dedicating one or more of the planting fields to Alchemy ingredients. Most Alchemy ingredients can be planted there, with a few exceptions (Nirnroot, Crimson Nirnroot). Basically anything you can plant in a base game planting spot can be planted here.
But if you're also playing Survival Mode, you may wish to dedicate all of the fields to food crops. We recommend a good assortment of all major types of crops in Skyrim, just to make sure you have all necessary ingredients to create useful food items with the recipes in Gourmet.
"Who can I recruit as a steward at Goldenhills?"
Here's an overview of candidates to consider:
| Follower | Notes |
|---|---|
| Lydia | Lydia is not eligible to serve as a Steward at Hearthfire houses, but players have reported she does work for Goldenhills |
| Any other base game follower | See the UESP Personal Steward page for other followers you can use |
| Interesting NPCs followers | See the Interesting NPCs followers page for potential candidates |
| Warden of the Coast followers | Any followers that survive the Warden of the Coast plot revert to running vanilla code, so in theory could serve at Goldenhills |
| Blood and Silver followers | Two followers are available in Cidhna Mine courtesy of the Blood and Silver mod, Ralya and Runs-With-Sticks |
In all cases, it will be likely that any follower provided by a mod will not have voiced lines for steward functionality at Goldenhills. This is so far confirmed to reproduce with Lydia as well as Gorr from Interesting NPCs. The reason for this is, if the creators of those mods didn't specifically create voiced versions of those lines to provide AE support, Tuxborn has no way to fill that in. So if you want to see those lines when interacting with your appointed steward, and they aren't a base game follower, you'll need to turn on subtitles.
"What other recommendations are there for running Goldenhills Plantation?"
If you choose to run the Pets of Skyrim content from the AE, the farm is a good potential place to send assorted pets to hang out for when you don't want them with you. The Pets of Skyrim code allows you to tell the pets where their homes should be.
Credits
Thanks to the following players on #txbn-general who have contributed info for this page:
- Gen, for confirming Lydia can be recruited as steward for Goldenhills